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1. Listen, listen, listen. “Don’t talk much,” says Philip Yancey. “Job’s friends sat in silence with him for seven days. But as soon as they opened their mouths, that’s when the trouble started.” And allow them to air their sorrow. “It’s possible to both lament and question in a faithful context,” says Michael Emlet [of CCEF]. “It can be liberating for them to know that they don’t have to suffer in silence before God.”

2. Be physically present. It means so much for you to take the time to visit. Your presence is enormously comforting.

3. Commit to the long haul. Don’t let the sufferer fall off your radar screen after their initial diagnosis. Sustained care demonstrates your commitment to a person with a chronic disease.

4. Find ways to laugh. Friends who love best draw us out of our suffering and help us to see the big picture. Encourage those who are ill to focus on other things, and to laugh. The church needs to show that there can be joy in the midst of tears.

5. Pray beyond healing. It’s important to pray for healing, but it’s also important to pray for endurance, faith, and growth. It’s also helpful to get elders involved in praying for those who suffer–they’re our shepherds.

6. Consider starting a support group at your church. “We’ve seen much comfort and emotional healing for chronic illness sufferers through our church’s pain support group,” said one leader. “There’s hope in seeing how God is helping others going through similar struggles.”

Copyright 2008, all rights reserved, byFaith magazine. This article first appeared in the February 2008 issue of byFaith and is reprinted by permission.

From the Christian viewpoint, theological thinking is not an end in itself. Christianity is to be lived; it is an issue to action; as long as it remains merely thought it is unChristian and futile. But it is a half-truth because whatever a man [or woman] does depends upon what he thinks and what he holds of ultimate view (William E. Harden in A Layman’s Guide to Protestant Theology).

The 2006 Christian Community Development Assn Conference will be held September 27-October 1 at the Center City Marriott Hotel. For detailed information click here. Mark the date on your calendars now.

“In service we engage our goods and strength in the active promotion of the good of others and the causes of God in our world. [We] may also serve others to train ourselves away from arrogance, possessiveness, envy, resentment or covetousness. In that case service is undertaken as a discipline for the spiritual life. Service is the high road to freedom from bondage to other people. We cease to be “manpleasers,” for we are acting unto God in our lowliest deeds” (Dallas Willard in The Spirit of the Disciplines).

“Verbal encouragement includes the idea of one person’s joining someone else on a journey and speaking words that encourage the traveler to keep pressing on despite obstacles and fatigue”
(Crabb and Allender in Encouragement).

Everywhere Jesus went was “Bethel.” There were no bad neighborhoods for Jesus. Therefore, there should be no bad neighborhoods for us. And, because there are no bad neighborhoods, and because Jesus is Emmanuel (God with us), we must go into the cities, move into the cities, raise families in the cities, work in the cities, and mobilize/empower other Christians to do the same. Christians need to go to their “Samarias.” We need to go to those “forbidden” places where we “cannot” go. We need to be as salt and light in at-risk neighborhoods (from Ray Bakke, A Theology as Big as the City)..

Why waste time discussing how we will know who our neighbor is? Just go and be “neighbor” to someone, to anyone, in need. Let the needy find his neighbor in you. Drop the talk. Cut the chatter. Take God’s gifts of time, money, goods, talents, counsel, a listening ear, a helping hand . . . out there where someone can use them. To love your neighbor as yourself means simply to be a neighbor whenever and wherever you can (Lester DeKoster in The Deacons Handbook).

One cannot know beforehand whom he will meet. The immediate sight of a neighbor demands a spontaneous answer. One becomes a neighbor also to people outside one’s group, nation, or race. In the encounter, the other becomes one’s neighbor in the same way that one is his neighbor. The roles of participants in an encounter require modesty in both parties. Often one is inclined to think that his message is for the other, without thinking of the possibility that the other might have a message too (Kosuke Koyama in Waterbuffalo Theology).

In The Spirit of the Disciplines Dallas Willard states that service is done for the “active promotion of the good of others.” [We] may also serve others to train ourselves away from arrogance, possessiveness, envy, resentment or covetousness. In that case service is undertaken as a discipline for the spiritual life. Service is the high road to freedom from bondage to other people . . . for we are acting unto God in our lowliest deeds (p.182).

“The most radical teaching of Jesus was his total reversal of the contemporary notion of greatness. Leadership is found in becoming the servant of all. Power is discovered in submission. The foremost symbol of this radical servanthood is the cross. (He humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on the cross, Phil. 2:8). But note this: Christ not only died a cross-death, he lived a cross-life. The way of the cross, the way of the suffering servant, was essential to his ministry. Jesus lived the cross life in submission to his fellow human beings. He lived the cross-life in total submission to the will of the Father. Jesus’ life was the cross-life of submission and service. Jesus’ death was the cross-death of conquest by suffering.” (Richard Foster in Celebration of Discipline)